About Judas

Over the last few days in the Catholic blogosphere, the case of assisted suicide, it's legality and morality, have been a hot topic. My response has been as follows:

"The Church should offer compassion, hope and care to the dying, but having the power of the state weigh in on this matter is the issue at hand. Laws against suicide are designed to prevent people from seeking a permanent solution to a temporary problem and to force treatment on the mentally ill who are too sick to seek it.

It was never meant to interfere in the right to end a long term illness because people would often die more quickly. We must also allow people to give up when doctors will not. We are a resurrection people. Some truly believe that God is an Ogre who damns us for ending pain. That is the implication if you start talking about sin in this context."

Of course, the unsaid truth is that comatose patients are heavily sedated to ease pain or to make ventilation easier, although hastening their passing is not seen as such a bad thing.

Most people who pass normally have simply stopped eating, but have had to go through a season of pain to get there. If pain is not redemptive except as a reason to call on divine mercy, then there is no reason to endure it.

Not eating is hard, although after a few days it is less so. A compassionate injection is much less work and an act of surrender as well. If one has faith, it shows confidence in redemption. If not, surprise once on the other side. There is no data but the resurrection of one who took wine laced with hyssop before dying.

The discussion about the fate of Judas Iscariot came up in the discussion about the quoted remarks. Did his suicide damn him? Was he a Sadducee at heart and sought escape or a Pharisee overcome with psychotic grief, or was his suicide simply a part of the narrative?

One of the recent obvious forgeries was the recently discovered manuscript, reportedly from the fourth century, of a gospel which portrays Judas as part of a plot with Jesus to deliver him to the authorities as part of the plan of salvation. It is obvious fiction, although the truth may be stranger.

The current teaching is that the Synoptic Gospels were a product of the post diaspora Christian communities, though coming from apostolic teaching. Let us assume that apostle means witness, not shepherd/bishop.  My personal belief is that John may have been authored by the real person. 

Mark was a narrative, possibly by one of his diclsciples in Alexandria (maybe they were bishops). The addition of Q, or Quirrel, adds to later gospels. Q is a lost collection of the sayings of Jesus, with no author attribution. What if that was not entirely true.

The sayings may have been contemporaneous. There was a scribe among the party. Maybe he was taking notes. If so, we know exactly who that scribe was, but the manner of his death and betrayal would have made naming him decidedly inconvenient. That would be the ultimate irony.